"Sonidos Gitanos/Gypsy Flamenco," directed by dancer Maria Bermúdez, offered an extraordinary evening of dance and music Friday at the chilly but artistically blistering John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. The program was presented in collaboration with the Fountain Theatre.

As faithful flamenco watchers know, Bermúdez is an artist of supreme control and line — a fierce, tight, intense dancer. She could focus attention entirely upon simple, slow, sensuous rotations of her hands that opened her solo, "Viejo Mundo," without betraying a ripple of motion elsewhere throughout her body.

Innovator from Seville puts a Nijinsky-style spin on flamenco Jennifer Fisher, LA Times

You can't get through a paragraph of press about Israel Galván, one of the hot new innovators of the flamenco world, without hitting comparisons to the iconoclastic Russian dancer-choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Such hyperbole can be tiresome, but the comparison became relevant as the stunningly fresh Compañía Israel Galván made its first local appearance Tuesday night as part of the ongoing New World Flamenco Festival at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

It was obvious from the get-go that Compañía Israel Galván, the second dance offering of the New World Flamenco Festival, would be out of the ordinary.

The curtain was up, the wings gone, the rear cement wall exposed and a floor lamp with bare light bulb glowing as the audience took their seats at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. This is a preferred setting of avant-garde post-modern dance. And if you want to categorize what Galván does, that's the best moniker: post-modern flamenco.

Among the many reasons to like the Irvine Barclay's New World Flamenco Festival is just how darn well flamenco's many flavors and facets are presented to the audience - easily digested by connoisseur and novice alike.

It's done not with didacticism, but with unadulterated style; we can really see, hear and even feel what differentiates the artists on a single program, and those from all the others in the festival. You may not like it all; that is, you may favor one style over another. But there is no skimping on quality here. The artists and the artistry are so fine that choosing to like one over another is a simple aesthetic choice. It's like favoring chocolate ice cream rather than strawberry. They're both creamy rich.

Flamenco fest goes out in a blaze of footwork Jennifer Fisher, LA Times

The New World Flamenco Festival came to a blazing conclusion at the Irvine Barclay Theatre over the weekend with what amounted to a mini-festival of footwork by the Madrid-based Compañía Antonio Canales. In a multipart program titled, simply, "Bailaor" ("Dancer"), Southern California finally got a look at the renowned Antonio Canales, an innovator and charismatic presence in flamenco since the 1980s.

Antonio Canales made his debut at the Irvine Barclay Theatre New World Flamenco Festival this weekend preceded by an oversized reputation.

That reputation actually followed him throughout the night, because he made sure that it did.

Canales has been hailed as a virtuoso dancer, choreographic innovator and a trailblazer for today's young boundary-busting flamenco artists. The six-part program for his Compañía Antonio Canales was entitled simply "Bailaor" - "Dancer."

Flamenco Rocks is double strength intensity. The driving rhythms of flamenco and rock combine as a base for dance that is flamenco with a glossy rock star overlay, and music that is essentially rock with flamenco melody and colour insinuated through it.

The result is exhilarating entertainment in which a new generation of performers gives a fresh look to one old art form and another that - we must face it - is no longer young.

In recent days, lovers of flamenco had the rare opportunity to see two companies back to back: a charismatic group of performers from Seville, and the locally based, all-female Pasión y Arte.

The Sevillian flamenquistas lit the International House stage Thursday night, presented by American Friends of Flamenco. Low light and casual dress (for the men) established a back-to-basics feel for this performance, which shone with easy communion and trust among dancers, guitarists and singers. Rafael Campallo built storms of precise movement from pockets of stillness, and Choni Pérez made the long train of her dress a pliant dance partner.

ucky us, living in a town featuring cuisines from around the world, to say nothing of delectable gastronomic fusions. New York's dance scene is much like this. Noche Flamenca, performing at the Lucille Lortel, prides itself on the purity of its flamenco music and dance.

María Benítez Teatro Flamenco approaches this Spanish dance form with taste, tact and a sure sense of theater. But the company, founded in 1970 and based in Santa Fe, N.M., appears to have less respect for flamenco music. The amplification in the troupe's opening performance at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday night had the crushing loudness and synthetic quality of a stadium rock concert, and the sight of a singer sprouting a microphone was distracting.

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